Page 49 of Do You Ship It

@ladyanissadishipper

DEFINITELY. I mean, they’ve both got these HUGE ties to fate and so many parallels with their journeys of links to noble blood/duty that they twist out of to serve a greater good, and in this essay I will …

CHAPTER 18

I’m notavoidingAnissa at college, but our paths naturally don’t cross very much. There’s no strict assigned seating in classes, and this far into term everyone’s picked their spot for the year, so in the classes we share – art and history – we both gravitate to our usual seats, but I smile her way and she says ‘hi’ when we see each other around.

It’s a small shift, and while it feels nice, I’m also horribly, selfishly aware that the others might think it’s weird I’m suddenly friendly with an outcast like Anissa, and I know they’lldefinitelyjudge me for building a bit of a bond with her overOf Wrath and Rune, of all things.

My emotions about OWAR have become a tangled mess without me even realizing it. I thought I was just in this for Jake – it was a means to an end, a necessary evil, hours inevitably wasted learning the ins and outs of this series all in the name of romance.

But now I’ve genuinely started to enjoy it, beyond thinking of Jake or even proving to horrible Max that Iamcommitted to this fandom. I look forward to getting home and finishing up homework so I can watch another episode, staying up late to watch some more if one ends on a cliffhanger, even rewinding scenes to watch again and trawling through the fanfiction for more heart-warming, squeal-worthy Silversmith content …

It’sfun. Ilike it.

And I even feel like I know some of the others on Discord a bit more now. @wizeguy is twenty-six and Greek Cypriot; he’s gotten his grandma into the books and helps her learn English with them. @fauningforhim is a stay-at-home mum of three who likes to tell us about ridiculous things her young kids have said, and claims that fanfic and this community was a lifeline when she first moved to South Wales for her husband’s work. There’s @sirmoonypants, aka Sam, who has a wicked-sharp sense of humour and has just started studying a PhD in economics; and of course, @silversmithhh, the first-year law student and fellow romance-afficionado whose name I’ve learned is Heather.

I know it’s all online, and I don’tactuallyknow any of them, but … in Discord, it feels like they’re my friends just as much as Daphne and Nikita and everyone are at school.

Anissa and I chat in Discord too, sometimes about day-to-day stuff or college, and sometimes about the show. I notice she’s quite active in the main chat and gets into a heated debate with someone in one of the theory threads, posting even while we’re in class.

People leave casual messages in the main chat about things going on at work or school, or send photos of a book haul they just bought, send memes and links to TikTok videos they want to share. It’s not all obsessing over characters and theorizing – although Ihavestarted to delve into those channels a little bit too, interested in ways the show has deviated from the books and what storylines I might be missing out on.

It’s a different kind of friendship – low stakes and no pressure, nobody minding how little I know about the fandom or if I have silly questions about the lore of the show I don’t quite understand. I don’t feel like I have to work so hard to cultivate it, or to keep my place there. They’re alwaysthere, whenever I want to be part of it.

It’s nice.

It even goes a little way to filling the gap left by Jake’s unexplained absence, although it can’t distract me completely from it.

My best friend hasn’t exactly dropped off the face of the earth – every few days, he sends me a funny posthe’s seen on Instagram, and he does reply tosomeof my texts, but I still get the sense he’s holding me at arm’s length, avoiding me somehow. The Discord private chat has been dead since his last too-brief reply in it.

I don’t know whether I’m more upset or worried; if something wasreallywrong, wouldn’t he tell me? His sister Ginny’s Instagram posts are all very normal – her out with friends, sharing memes, cute outfit pics – so I don’t think anything’s up with his family … Whatever it is, it must be personal.

Would it be too pushy to just message Jake and ask him what’s going on, if something’s wrong? But I don’t want him to just brush me off … Should I try phoning him? That seems better than showing up uninvited on his doorstep, but what if he doesn’t answer? Could that missed call become the nail in the coffin for us?

I hate that navigating my crush is making our friendship suffer, but it’s so hard to let go of it.

He’ll tell me when he’s ready.

He won’t just disappear on me. Hewouldn’t.

Would he?

It doesn’t help that things at home have also been weird, and I’m dying to talk to Jake about it. I don’t want to bring it up with the girls – their families seem so uncomplicated, and it’s kind of nice pretending mine is, too. It’s nice having that escape where I canalmost convince myself there’s nothing going on worth talking about.

But Dad’s been over more and more, including for more of these weird, too-civil ‘family dinners’ where he and Mum seem to begetting on, and Mum’s out with friends a lot more, so Dad keeps staying over in the spare room, and his toothbrush has appeared back by the bathroom sink, so I can’t shake the horrible feeling that he’s moving back in, and they’re trying again.

I know I should be happy about that, but it feels like it’ll only blow up in their faces – and mine – before long. It has every other time. And I’m so exhausted by it. I’m sotiredof being caught in the middle.

Jake would understand. Or rather, he’d be a good sympathetic ear to vent to about it all, which is really all I need. But as he’s not really talking to me, it feels selfish to dump all my shit on him when we’re like this, so I keep it to myself and distract myself with more OWAR episodes and Discord and my new fanart projects.

When another Wednesday comes and goes without our weekly watch-party, I ache with how much I miss Jake. His easy laughter and quick smile, his warm hugs, all of him. I even missMax– if only because seeing him meant spending time with Jake, too.

Maybe I need a bit of an icebreaker in Discord to get us talking again. Maybe if we can talk about OWAR,it’ll lead to deeper conversations aboutus? That’s worked before, with both of us opening up in there, all those late-night, honest conversations where we moved on from talking about the show and messaged for hours.

Imissthose conversations; I think I miss them more than I do hanging out with him in real life.

I’m up to the season three finale, and go ahead and watch it on my own, but first I open up the private chat that’s been dormant for the past ten days.

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